The Land Trap

How the world''s oldest asset secretly shapes our modern economy

In The Land Trap, Mike Bird—The Economist’s Wall Street editor—pulls back the curtain on how this ancient asset exerts outsized influence over the modern world. With masterful insight into global finance, Bird reveals how land has quietly become the linchpin of the world’s banking system, affecting everything from soaring housing prices to geopolitical tensions. From the speculative land grabs of colonial America to China’s modern-day real estate crisis, Bird shows how fortunes are built—or destroyed—all on the bedrock of land.

As governments wrestle with inequality, climate crises threaten entire regions, and land becomes ever scarcer, The Land Trap offers a bold new framework for understanding the driving force behind today’s most pressing challenges. Eye-opening and timely, Bird’s analysis unveils how land remains the ultimate currency of power—and the key to economic survival in an increasingly fragile world.

This is the book for anyone who wants to see beyond markets and money to the hidden game being played on a foundation as old as civilization itself. Timely, provocative, and essential, The Land Trap will change how you see the ground beneath your feet.